Numb Not Dumb
by evilsAfoot
Summary: No matter how you turn it. No matter what verse they're in; Gabriel Gray is a sick mind, twisted and disturbing. His sins control his every move, Claire Bennet is a victim, even if she tries to fight against it. One could say their joining is meant to be. Set in stone. (AU)


**Numb Not Dumb**

_No matter how you turn it. No matter what verse we're in; Gabriel Gray is a sick mind, twisted and disgusting. His sins control his every move, Claire Bennet is a victim, even if she tries to fight against it. One could say their joining was set in stone._

Since he first laid his eyes upon her, Gabriel Gray burned for her.

He was out, Teacher sent him to the bathroom when he asked (what reason was there to doubt the quite kid in the back, the one with glasses and parted hair, who hardly ever talked?) If they let him out without question, he wouldn't abuse their authority. Strolling empty hallways, a ghost, suited him better than the classroom anyway. As luck, or fate, (or misfortune) would have it she'd been out as well.

He'd just barely stepped round the corner of a vacated hallway when he saw them. Neither the meat-head pressing her up against the locker, nor she, the physical embodiment of beauty, noticed him. Her cheeks were flushed, and several wispy strands of her bangs fell over her face, catching in her parted lips, and fluttering eye lashes. The meat-head held her roughly, ape-like hands encircling her forearms pressing them down in a manner that was sure to leave bruises. Gabriel noted in awe how she stared back with a foolish defiance glittering in her eyes as she tried to twist away from him. Gabriel could do nothing but stand there and watch, petrified.

He was indiscreet_, _inthe _middle of the everything_, jaw hanging unhinged, arms limp spaghetti by his sides. His fingers were so numb they felt like pieces of cardboard glued to him with air crusted paste that had long since lost its adhesive properties. Still, they didn't notice, forever and always the personified shadow of the student body. Later, he'd learn her name; Claire Bennet. It would haunt him to his very soul, ringing through his mind during sleepless nights. Claire, like a sharp green sprig of grass, poking out of earthy dirt. Claire, like the blunt six lettered V-I-C-T-I-M, so obvious it was as if it were branded across her forehead. Surely the meathead could read it as clearly as he could. At the time however, she had no name, and existed simply a figure, with a face, and character unlike any he'd encountered before. Enticing and beautiful. He could imagine her taste as it rolled through the air to the tip of his tongue. Limber, little body against that bold, egregious form, capturing her. _Sexy._

She tried to hit the meat-head with those precious little hands of hers, but he blocked her, held her down even harder. Gabriel's palms burned against his pleated khakis as if he'd been the one commanding her, touching her. She cursed, the meat-head taunted her with his smirk. He pressed down even closer, she whimpered. That quiet little noise of despair echoed through the empty hall, plucking Gabriel like a taunt guitar sting. He fell in love (Deeply in love). He briefly considers the fact that as an upstanding member of society, it was his civil duty to step out in her defense. Contrarily, the idea of reveling himself replaced the hot sweat curling down his brow with something much more frigid. Before the panic of indecision could set in, they're all saved by the bell. Teenagers flood the once empty halls, the meat-head releases her, Gabriel gets lost in the crowd. The axis resumes its rotation. Gabriel leaves the scene with a pulse burning red hot, and the front of his slacks stretched much tighter than before.

Claire Bennet creates a new plain of existence. Becoming a constant blip on his radar he watches her, intensity spiraling, memorizing her schedule (in and out of school), learning the way her body moves (as if she'd had something to prove). He goes so far as to follow her home one day, but then she turns towards his direction and his heart jumps in his throat without the protection of the other students concealing him. She didn't notice him. His favorite time of day is after school where he hides under the bleachers and she prances around the football field, legs exposed, hairless and golden, smallish breasts bouncing despite her attempts at restraining them. He indulges in the very perversion his mother's congregation warned young boys against. The heat of his flesh, so hot, so tightly wound, his hand providing what little release he could grant himself in those brief moments while hiding amongst the never noticed.

The day they finally meet is the worst of his life.

Peter Petrelli is introduced to him through Chemistry where they are bound to each other as lab partners. He's unlike most of the boys their age in his rather striking naivety, and blind faith in the goodness of humanity. A 'Nice Guy' with the very big brown eyes and the same crooked smile advertised in romantic comedies. He's kind to everyone he meets, including Gabriel, and while he's not a member of the brightest and the brightest (nor does he pretend to be), his undeniable motivation to learn can't be misplaced. Gabriel helps him with Chemistry, because like everything else in the arbitrary system of education provided by the American country, it comes easy to him. One lab report and an A plus later, finds Peter taking him out for celebratory burgers. Two nights later finds them at Peter's having a marathon of crap television. Before he knows it Gabriel has a friend, apparently regardless of whether he wants him or not (he's still not sure). Just as suddenly Gabriel realizes they're actually quite close when Peter invites himself over to Gabriel's and doesn't run screaming from his psychotic mother.

They stay after school sometimes to work on Peter's homework, until they're both sure he understands everything the way he's meant to, and can pass any upcoming assessments on same such topics. Another day they walk from the library, by the football field, to where Peter's car, and apparently Gabriel's ride home, awaits. Halfway through the trek, and Gabriel spots it first. The same clumsy meat-head has her bunched against a corner, one filthy, sausage fingered hand grips her across the mouth, the other sneaks under her tight uniform top. Her eyes are wide as saucers, unmistakably terrified. She sets off her spark, Gabriel's blood shoots through his veins like bullets. Clued by his abrupt halt, Peter follows his stare, and matches Claire's horror. He charges forward, heroic and impulsive, 'Nice Guy' to the rescue, Gabriel has no choice but to follow.

"Fucking Hell, Brody!" He spits, yanking the meat-head off of her, throwing him to the pavement and crashing down after him. They spit and claw like tom-cats. Without Brody's hand suffocating her, Claire begins to cry and the way she tries so hard not to, keeping her shuddering gasps of breath measured and controlled, makes the moisture welling in her eyes more desperate to break free.

Gabriel considers her despair and his convenient placement. He wonders if she might fall into his arms in search of comfort. She'd be so small against him, and the very thought fans his inferno. Her shoulders convulse, he bites his lip, wonders what they'd feel like against his chest. His fingers could fit so nice against her rib cage, or maybe splayed out against her back, stroking gently along the line of her spine. Soothing, calming_, stimulating_. Flames crawl beneath his fingernails, itching his hands to reach out, pull her in, hold her while Peter tussled it out for her honor. He breathes her in from where he stands a mere foot away, smells the artificial burn of her shampoo on his nostrils. It takes all his might hot to fall into her.

His mind deliberates, in slow torturous cycles, but again the world refuses to wait for him in its continuous rivets around the sun. The meat-head makes some sort of noise of defeat, heaves Peter off hard enough to spare a second for a run for it. Claire kneels down by Peter as he tries to move after him. She stops him (eyes wet and body still shaking), pressing two delicate fingers against his shoulders, and on a scale of survival it's in Peter's best interests to stay behind. Gabriel wishes he'd never been born (Peter? Himself?). He's forced to watch dumbstruck. A part of him wants Peter to run after him. Her trembling fingers wipe streaks of blood trailing from his lip while she thanks him. Peter cracks that soft smile of his, and enquires about her wellbeing. Gabriel stands at the side as they're enraptured with each other.

Easy as that, Claire fills into an actual person rather than the faded fantasy Gabriel loved and admired. He encounters her nearly every day at Peter's side. Itching for her, but never daring to touch. Sometimes she sits laughing at one of Peter's jokes, hardly a breath away. Other times she's so close he entertains himself by counting the freckles dusting over the bridge of her nose. Calculating the exact degree to which the shell of her ear bends. Ironically, she's as out of reach as ever. Not a week after their introduced to each other Claire and Peter are in love.

Any tribulation he encountered at a distance increases ten-fold. Every exchanged pair of smiles, blissful in new-found puppy love, every innocent brush of fingers spirals an unstoppable anxiety (jealousy, envy) that aches throughout his body. On a scorching day of summer, Gabriel enters the Petrelli mansion (Big Borther Nathan carelessly ushers him in, without even a hint of warning) and stumbles upon the two rutting together on the couch of the bonus room, air hot with immature passion.

Hidden behind the half-wall of the stairwell Gabriel can afford to stay and watch, body burning with its prescribed masochism. The material of their clothes wrinkles with their movements, and Peter's hand moves soft against her. They kiss like the young lovers they are, holding nothing back. She explores him timidly as he rests in the valley of her legs, rolling gently into her body. Gabriel bites at his own tongue, literally cutting off the self-derogating moans nagging to break free. Face hot with guilt he presses his palm down, hard, against his rising cock. They release synchronized gasps as Peter tugs down the collar of her dipped blouse to expose the dusty pink of her nipple budding a shapely breast.

Gabriel shoves a hand roughly into his pants and jerks to his own beat, fast and choppy, contrary to the slow swaying of the other two. His thoughts berate his mind while in a perfect situation he'd wish to narrow in on pleasure (pain). Instead he wields a battle he's destined to loose. Claire's glory, his lust, Peter's unbeknownst victory, his utter and undeniable resentment. He craves her, more than he ever thought was humanly possible, and yet Peter's the one that gets to hold her against him. As his left works furiously with his stiff erection, his right chokes his mouth, pushing against his teeth and tongue, suffocating his gritted whimpers. He thinks of how it felt watching Claire pinned down by some lumbering stranger, and how it fired him up verses the fire he feels now watching his kind friend lovingly handle her. He thinks he liked it better with the meat-head shoving her around. It's in that moment he realizes he's insane and he comes with a barely repressed shout.

Ironic as it is, cliché as it is, everyone seems to think he hates her. It's outrageous from Gabriel's perspective, knowing exactly how it is he covets for her. It's simple from the view of an outsider. Self-preservation. He shuts down, sulks, glares through narrowed coal-black eyes. Foolish egocentrism has them all believing it's Peter's attention he's lusting after. Like he's a selfish toddler just introduced to his new baby sibling.

"Claire's coming over," accompanying apologetic shrug.

"Hey there, Gabriel," always cautious when she says his name. It still graces his ears, referring her angelic trill at him. _Gabriel_ she'd say, and he would latter shiver at the memory.

"Your actions are petulant, Gabriel, leave Peter space to breath," Mrs Petrelli has the gal to say once, as if Peter's the one he's in love with, and trying to smother with his contaminated mind. Contamination. His own spreads over the neurons of his brain, and he finds at this point action is the only solution.

He picks the perfect week and hatches a plan, reckless and stupid, but it's all he can afford with this all-consuming snap constantly pestering his thoughts. Papa Bennet's (He'd be intimidating if he wasn't so predictable) out on a business trip, Mamma Bennet's with little brother Benet at an athletic retreat. 3 in the morning on a Wednesday he slips past the advanced security system her paranoid father has constructed, and into the house. Finding Claire's room is even easier (like a basset hound on the trail of a rabbit), he creaks open the door to slip inside. Her head is cushioned on a pillow, matted hair glowing silver by the moonlight flickering through a cracked window, not the costmary gold. Her lips part for breath with the soft rise and fall of her chest. The blankets lay bunched at her feet, exposing her skin and thin summer night clothes, threadbare cotton shorts and a tank-top. Surely even Jesus himself would weep at the sight of her.

Deprived, battered, and abused Gabriel's patience can hold no more, he sets to work. Clothes restrict his movement so he sheds them like a dry skin. Struggles with the cheap but starched collared shirt and typical slacks before folding them softly on the chair by Claire's desk. A last precaution he slips off his glasses, resting them atop his other clothes. He feels exposed in his underwear, white wife-beater and grey briefs loosened with age, even with no one watching him. Still. He's hard with anticipation.

His knees sink onto her mattress; the springs don't creak like they would in his bed. He pauses none the less, waits in silence silence, resume the task at hand. He crawls up, her length stretched between his parted limbs, as he moves his growing erection rubs her upturned hip. Bites his lip, squeezes eyes, stills, revels at first contact, silence, resume. Finally, hovering over her at the top of the bed he stops again. He admires, watches her eyeballs twitch beneath her lids, still deep in sleep. With a deep exhalation of the nose, he dares to slide his finger up her arm, making her sigh through her sleep, before he catches her wrist. Pull and tie to the head board, repeat for symmetry.

Once both her writs are bound he allows himself another deep breath, sits back on his haunches, and begins. After all this time he's not willing to wait anymore. He touches her again, the long fingers of his hand reach to trace the lines of her face, down the slope of her nose, over the thin arch of her eyebrows, her sinfully plump lips. With nothing holding him back he satiates, leans down and softly brushes his chapped mouth to hers, smooth and warm, closes his eyes and breaths in their first chaste kiss. Claire stirs, he jerks back.

Not ready to wake her, knowing this picture perfect illusion he's constructed would shatter the second consciousness slipped through and she recognized the situation, recognized his face. So he touches himself, brushes his hands against his chest over and under his remaining clothes. His skin is hot, festering with the tell-tale moisture of perspiration. "God, Claire," he sighs to himself, blaspheme thick on his tongue, hooded eyes staring down at her.

He dips his head again, presses his face to the crook of her neck, nose bumping over flesh, forehead connecting with the cut of her jaw. His hands slide over her arms, to her biceps, the very place the meat-head held her on his first sighting. He kisses against her again, feather light, then with an added slip of his tongue to taste her. She's salty from the heat. The groan that escapes him is strangled as he instinctively jerks his hips between her thighs.

"Peter?"

Her voice is low, soft, sleep muddled.

He freezes, stomach clenching. She shifts beneath him slowly stirring into a more wakeful state.

"What the-" she's realized he's not Peter then. Her voice and body tense automatically. he can feel it beneath him, "Who the Hell are you!?"

"Don't look."

It's all he can muster, utter nonsense. He's still insisting on hiding from her though he knows it's futile. His voice is unmistakably deeper than Peter's, drier (always when she's involved). Her reaction is immediate, despite her prior state of unconsciousness, body seizing, registering for the first time that her hands are bound to the head board in two equally tight knots. He sits up to watch.

"Gabriel?" Gasp of recognition, total confusion. "What are you-" jerk one wrist in panic, test the bond, maybe see if she can break free, "Where are your clothes?" He flushes, fights the urge to curl in on himself. If he's in charge this once, he might as well start acting like it. "Why are you here?" Panic. Panic. Panic! He shifts his hips, grinds against her, and his eyes roll back, lips fall open, "Oh God! What are you doing!?"

Her disgust only fuels to burn him more, and he moves once again before pushing his hands harder into her arms. She exclaims in pain, he shivers, "Oh Claire," name sliding from his mouth with its usual grace, "Agh," he grunts idiotically, distracted by sensation.

"Stop! What are you doing? Gabriel!"

He snaps, rakes his eyes hungrily over the bit of her stretched out beneath him. His hands follow his eyes, never disconnecting from her body as they traveled, arms, neck, collar bone, chest, her breasts, her stomach, then the quietly uttered finale, "Claire."

"Ugh, stop!" she grunts kicking out this time, but he's stronger than she is. Sits on her, thrust at her.

Gabriel listens to the desperate clench in her throat, and complies to his deep rooted desires. "Need," he breathes with the eloquence of a Neanderthal before sliding his hands up again, gripping the cut of her shirt and tugging with all his might in opposite directions. The fabric rips with a satisfying noise as he pulls it in half. She calls out in protest. Greeted by her exposed breasts he can spare only a minimal moment for admiration before diving into her, latching his mouth to every inch of the soft flesh and sucking it for all he was worth.

"Gabriel, stop please!" he can't tell if that tone in her voice is outrage or fear or humility. His insanity decides it doesn't matter, all three proved to work well in the task of getting him off.

His own discorded breathing slows him down. Anxiety and excitement threatening to suffocate him if he doesn't break. So he rest his cheek right in the hot plate between her breasts, and watches the goosebumps rise on her flesh as his breath falls against her, "Filthy," he mutters softly between his pants.

"W-what?" her voice sounds smaller than before. He brushes his fingers down the curve of her side.

"I'm filthy," He tells her, louder, wants her to hear, needs her to know that he knows, "Tell me I'm filthy."

"What?"

He growls gutturally and in a whim of courage digs the nails of those same fingers into that same spot on her side, "Call me filthy!" He sits up, rips his glare over her, from the bit of her belly exposed beneath his thighs, to her round face so beautifully wretched, "Do it," he assures a final time as her hesitation is so simple to interpret.

"You're F-filthy."

He groans, and rocks against her several more times on instinct. Embarrassment flames in his face, flush spreading down his neck and shoulders, his lack of control and restraint is degrading. He wonders how his arousal makes her feel as it rubs against her. Whether or not she can feel the wetness in his underwear and if she can does it make the bile rise in her throat? He leans down to kiss her, pulls her lower lip down with his teeth and tries to slide his tongue through. Her resistance makes it messier than it should be, their spit intermingles in a trail between their mouths as he moves to sit back up.

"Why are you doing this?" she asks shakily, "I thought you hated me."

"I don't hate you," is all he can manage in response.

A part of him wants to tell her everything. Tell her how he saw her first, how he wasted away in shadows, watching her. How he'd damned himself for the first time and then many times over thinking about her in the dark of his bedroom. How his awareness of her broke the camel's back and he let go of the reality that had always been fleeting away from him. He doesn't.

He wants to feel more of her, and somehow manages to work up his courage for the great reveal. He pulls the wife beater over his head by its collar, breaks character by throwing it on the floor. He wiggles on top or her sliding his briefs off before he has time to chicken out, they join the wife beater in a heap.

It leaves him totally bear before her and whether it's conscious or not, he sees her looking him over. Irrational nausea sweeps over him for a fraction of a second. Gabriel had never been overly aware of his physicality, but now, looming over his goddess in the pale moonlight, it's clear to them both he's no sight to behold. Skin and bones, hardly any muscle to soften the pot, a trail of hair stretches down from the center of his chest to the base of his pubic zone, starting thin than filling out in a batch of dark curls, his prick circumcised, and stretching out to her, strung tight, with its foul excretions beading at the tip.

"Am I ugly, Claire?" He asks when her eyes finally snap back up to his face.

"No," she lies, and he can credit her with her devotion to surviving, but this is not what he wants from her.

"Don't lie to me," he commands and tweaks her nipple for emphasis, "Am I ugly?!"

"I don't know," her voice cracks at the end. He bends down to give her a quick nip on the mouth, but misses, lands on the tip of her nose instead.

"Tell me I'm ugly."

"You're ugly!" She shouts perhaps louder than she'd intended. In a fit of emotion her wrists jerk against her bonds in another feeble attempt of escaping.

"Oh God," the words grit out of him. ( .) He slides a hand over his upper body, then down so his abdomen twitches under its path, at last it lands on his cock, his fingers wrapping around the length in a familiar action. His other hand moves behind his back between her thighs and inexperienced fingers nudge against her shorts and panties to find her hot, yet discouragingly dry cunt. He retreats as if he'd brushed over a live flame.

He falls back on plan B. Sits there on top of her, and tugs at himself, grip tight, mouth falling open dumbly, eyes crossing, her sent wafting up through his nostrils. The drawn out foreplay has his balls tightening far earlier than usual, his stomach twitches, and with a last grunt he cums hard, sheet after sheet spurting over her torso and breasts. When it's over with he rests his hands on either side of her body and catches his breath.

"Claire," he mutters lightly, eyes trailing over where her tan skin is stained in white, and reveling in it. One trembling hand, strung tight from the orgasm, rises and rubs gently in the filth that covers her right breast, spreading it out further across, rubbing it into her, than wiping the excess wetness over her cheek and the corner of her mouth when he's done. Her lip curls in an uncontrollable disgust.

Gabriel breaths out a heavy sigh. Climbs off of her, re-dresses in silence (Claire hasn't made a noise since that last forced exclamation). When he's collected Gabriel again, glasses sitting perched on the curve of his nose, he walks over to the bed and Claire. Stares down at her, admires her one final time, and bends over to kiss her dryly on the forehead. She's sullied and mostly naked, and stays completely still, but her eyes are burning the same way they had the first day he'd seen her. His spent cock twitches hopelessly beneath his clothes.

When he loosens the bonds around her wrists, she hardly moves besides to lower her arms to either side of her body. Just lays there and glares, and continues her seemingly infinite befuddling of Gabriel's mind. With one last glance, and no more words to share he turns and makes his way out of her room, out of the Bennet house. The future is limitless from that point on, and completely out of his control. There will likely be hell to pay for these actions, both in the now and in the afterlife. He can picture how his mother will cry when her suspicions are proven right, her son is a lunatic. He can see Peter's face only too clearly, wrinkled in betrayal and confusion. If Mr Bennet finds out, he'll surely be hunted and killed shortly after. None of them will understand what compelled his actions, not even Claire. And truly that is the only pity to derive from the reflection.

He's royally screwed, but in the long run believes it was all worth it. (Hell fire could hardly match the heat that burned within him for Claire Bennet).


End file.
